1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to broadband network management, and more particularly to management of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks.
2. Background of the Invention
Traditionally, telecommunications service providers have offered basic services such as local and long distance exchange services for voice communications. More recently, with the explosive growth of the Internet and other data services, telecommunications service providers have expanded beyond basic telephone services to the provision of very high bandwidth network services. Examples of such newer network services include, for example, digital subscriber line (DSL), asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL), integrated services digital network (ISDN) digital subscriber line (IDSL), and the like. The underlying transmission facility supporting such high bandwidth networks may comprise an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network as shown in FIG. 1.
ATM network or “cloud” 10 in FIG. 1 comprises one or more ATM switches 11–15. The switches may be interconnected in any suitable manner to provide redundancy in the network and to ensure high speed transmission of network packets. ATM switches are well-known in the art and are available from numerous switch vendors, including, for example, Lucent, Cisco and Nortel.
ATM switch vendors generally provide off-the-shelf network management utilities that may be used to manage ATM network elements. A problem with conventional ATM network management tools, however, is the lack of adequate reporting capabilities providing information needed to properly manage a large-scale ATM network. For example, conventional ATM network management utilities do not provide trunk inventory reports, trunk utilization reports and exception reports.
Another problem with conventional ATM network management utilities is the lack of an activation utility to activate flow control and flow control attributes for eligible User Network Interfaces (UNIs).